Use of the Internet, especially the world-wide-web (www or web), is rapidly growing. Accompanying this growth is a growth in the number and kind of new services which can potentially be offered over the Internet. With many new services in future, the inventors expect that there will need to be many different models for billing the various parties who may be involved in providing, using and supporting the service. Specifically, increasingly, electronic services supplied over a public network, such as the Internet, are expected to require metering in terms of the length of time or the number of instances of the service usage.